Where do we go from here?

Immediately after our miscarriage, whenever I contemplated doing another round of IVF, I felt physically sick. The thought of having to start all over from scratch and go through another cycle of needles, pills, invasive procedures, pain and heartache was more than I could bear. I knew however, as with many things, time would be a great healer. Ironically I suppose it’s a little like childbirth. Women always say they’ll never do it again, then little by little they forget how rough it was and often find themselves back there again. The difference is however that they get a lovely gift at the end of childbirth, a nice little prize they can take home and love. All you get at the end of an unsuccessful IVF cycle is a huge dent in your bank account and feelings of failure and emptiness.

Whilst I would say we are still trying to process everything that happened during our second round, we started having the conversation about what to do now; how to move forward in our quest to becoming parents. This was further prompted by a letter from the Fertility Clinic with an appointment for our review meeting; which we attended last Tuesday.

I had absolute feelings of dread going back to that place. The last time we had been there was the worst time of our lives and I just wanted nothing to do with it. But I knew it was a good idea to go to the appointment and see if they could offer us any answers of why this happened to us, and how we could help make sure it didn’t happen again. HA! What a joke. As usual, the place just wound me up from the get-go. Firstly, we were taken half an hour late, then we had the appointment with a doctor that was completely unknown to us as opposed to the doctor we have had all the way through our 2 cycles, then because she knew she was running behind, from the minute we sat down we felt rushed. Well we weren’t having any of that. We were just as entitled to our half an hour as anyone else, so despite her only aim seemingly being to ascertain whether they were going to get more money out of us with another round or not, we defiantly asked to go through the second round stage by stage and asked her all the questions we wanted. Unfortunately however, she could offer us no definitive answers to anything. And I get it. Despite the amazing technology and science behind IVF, there are still many things they don’t know the answers to. Everyone has a different body which reacts and responds in their own ways and she admitted that the only way to rule certain things out, i.e. any additional underlying issues, is to keep doing more cycles. Well that is a lot easier said than done.

She explained the likelihood is that the miscarriage was just a one-off, and the positive to take from it was that we did achieve a pregnancy; which of course we know and are really grateful for. It definitely gives us hope for doing another round; but it also adds another layer of worry if we were to do another round; especially since I was still testing positive on the pregnancy tests 2 weeks after I had actually miscarried. I guess the worry just never ends.

All in all, we have decided to have a break from IVF for the time being. This entire year has been taken up by it and I really feel like it’s consumed me. We haven’t done half of the things we wanted to do, seen the people we wanted to see or visited the places we wanted to visit, so I think it’s about time we just take some time for ourselves. Our names should be coming to the top of the NHS waiting list in January/February however the doctor assured us that we don’t have to take our turn then; our names will stay at the top until we decide we are ready and then we can just let them know when we want to begin our cycle. At this point in time, we are thinking April/May time, however that may change and of course we still have a chance of getting pregnant naturally so I’m hoping our dreams may just come true that way instead and I never have to visit that clinic again!

I was unsure how to continue with my blog whilst we are having our break; as I won’t have anything IVF-related going on particularly. However I didn’t want to just abandon it as I really enjoy writing my posts and communicating with the lovely people I have met through it, therefore I have decided to do some different posts whilst we are on our hiatus. I’m not exactly sure what these will entail at the moment, but you can expect everything from lifestyle, food, Roman, home etc. Some light relief from my negativity anyway!

Once again, thanks to everyone who has supported us through this truly awful time. You are all amazing! XOXO

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Published by Our Path to Parenthood

A 35 year old gal married to her soulmate and dealing with an unexpected slap in the face called infertility. Detailing my IVF journey through a series of blog posts; some positive, mostly negative and moaning. Be prepared!
View all posts by Our Path to Parenthood

3 thoughts on “Where do we go from here?”

I can relate to so much of this. I’m wondering whether it would do you good to change clinics if you can? I’m not sure if you’re self-funded or not but if you dread going there and then they mess you about, maybe it would be better to try a new place (I appreciate this is the pot calling the kettle black here!! 😂) I also wondered what the hell to do with my blog during my longer break. I too decided to carry on and just whitter about anything really!! People still seem to be reading it, so I’m guessing it’s ok. I hope you take some time to do some nice things, you both deserve it. Lots of love ❤️ xxx

Thanks so much Jess. We have previously looked into changing clinics but the logistics is always the big thing for us; there’s no other clinics anywhere near us so if we did change it would involve a great deal of travel. Hope things are going well with the cycle so far, looking forward to hearing how you’re getting on and wishing you all the luck in the world xxx

Ah, that’s a bugger about the logistics. We struggled when we did the cycle in London, sometimes a scan and a blood test was an 8 hour round trip, it was hard. Thanks so much, it’s going ok, I’m still feeling relaxed and happy at the minute, so that’s good. Thank you lovely xxx